Sunday, January 27, 2008

I'm just going to quote this Slate article (picture is from the article as well):

The embarrassment one feels at participating in the spectacle of The Moment of Truth is nothing compared with the feelings evoked by Battle of the Bods (Fox Reality, Sundays at 1 a.m. ET), an approximate hybrid of Hot or Not? and a marketing focus group. On the first episode, five Los Angelenas were trotted before the camera and a two-way mirror. On the other side of the mirror sat three men, identified merely as "surfers," who discussed the sexual desirability of each of the women and then, having reached consensus, ranked them from one to five. There were separate evaluations of the prettiness of their faces, the niceness of their gams, and the hubba-hubba-osity of "the full rack." The women stood to earn money, collectively, by anticipating how the rankings would shake out. I'm not sure what was in it for the dudes and therefore must presume that they share some obscure paraphilia and receive unnatural gratification from being seen to look like jerks.

It should be clear that Battle of the Bods is innovatively vile. Further, it is virally vile. To watch it is to play along and to start sizing up the women like a frat boy during orientation week. Worse, it is boringly vile. About half of the program finds the female contestants yapping about whose knees are better than whose. Ultimately, upon being ranked fifth by the boys, the most obnoxious of the girls teared up and stomped backstage. Her comrades went to comfort her and cheer her up, with one mentioning the $300 they'd each won. "Three hundred dollars?" came the retort. "That's not a Louis Vuitton purse. That's not even half of a Louis Vuitton purse!" Poor dear. Doesn't she know there's a sale on at Coach?

It's bad enough these women are being scrutinized, but they have to bet on who will win? That's some creative sexism: women are not only parading around half-naked, they're arguing over their bodies. Oh, and it doesn't hurt that they're snobby bitches either. Yep. That's some good reality tv. Whoever came up with this is an evil genius.